Leader of Opposition LK Advani and BJP President Rajnath Singh would meet Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar next week and discuss among other things "rising incidents" of suicides among farmers in the country.
This was announced by Advani in his inaugural address to the national executive of the BJP Kisan Morcha, the party's farmers wing.
Expressing serious concern over the "unprecedented situation" in the wake of large-scale suicides among farmers in Maharashtra and elsewhere, Advani said, "while there could be some individual cases due to some personal or other reasons, it cannot be a corporate phenomenon".
Recalling his meeting with families of suicide victims in the course of his recent 'Bharat Suraksha Yatra in Maharashtra's Yavatmal district, the senior BJP leader said most of them resorted to the extreme step due to indebtedness involving amounts like Rs 40,000 and Rs 60,000.
Citing statistics, Advani said of the 1.11 lakh suicides across the country in 2003, 17164 victims were farmers constituting 15.5 per cent of the total suicides.
The former Deputy Prime Minister said he had written to the Prime Minister demanding setting up of a Joint Parliamentary Committee to study the phenomenon and come out with remedies and the latter responded by saying that some schemes were being formulated to provide relief to such families.
{{/usCountry}}The former Deputy Prime Minister said he had written to the Prime Minister demanding setting up of a Joint Parliamentary Committee to study the phenomenon and come out with remedies and the latter responded by saying that some schemes were being formulated to provide relief to such families.
{{/usCountry}}The BJP, he said, would wage a struggle against the Government's "indifferences" and simultaneously give its constructive opinion to it.
The two-day meeting was earlier addressed by Morcha President Vinod Pandey.